Shattered Light
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: Better to have loved and lost...at least, that's what they say...


It's Techie brand angst! ANGST! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAAAAAY!

-

It was such a beautiful sound, he thought, one that he heard far too seldom for his liking.

Truly, if Rodney McKay could make Teyla laugh more often, he would have done anything in his power to make it happen.

As things stood however, she rarely cracked a smile anymore, much less broke out laughing.

Then again, no one was in the mood to smile much right now. Not since...

Not since John had...

Well, there was no use crying over spilt milk, was there? Sure it hurt like hell, but mulling it over again and again wouldn't do any good...thinking about what had occurred and what could have been done differently would only make him feel more miserable than he already felt.

Rodney remembered when she first sought him out to talk after it happened. She didn't exactly want to talk about _it_...she just wanted to talk in general...

But things eventually got around to the subject of Sheppard, like he expected they would.

What he _hadn't_ expected was the bitter tears that accompanied that first long talk between the two of them.

The first long talk when she sought solace in _his_ arms because he was the only person close enough to John to feel the loss as deeply as she did.

There was nothing sexual about their sitting together in his quarters holding each other...it was about _comfort_...it was about needing something solid to lean on.

They just happened to find that something solid in each other.

_She_ felt guilty because she'd never gotten the chance to tell him how she felt about him..._he_ felt guilty because he blamed himself for John being gone...

But through the hours they spent remembering and regretting and uniting in their grief, they found some semblance of peace; each knowing that the other _understood_.

And understanding was all they wanted, really.

That first time he kissed her--the first time it went beyond being comfort--they tore away from each other, feeling as though they'd betrayed the memory of the man they had both cared so much about.

They tried to stay away from each other after that first time...

But each had come to depend on the other too much for them to remain separate for very long.

The second time they didn't pull away from each other right away.

The third time they lingered longer than they both knew they should.

Every time after that the delays got longer and longer. Solace became desperate need. Comfort became frantic necessity. Grief became _want_.

Eventually, they went too far.

_Much_ too far.

And they _knew_ they went too far...

Still they couldn't resist it. The pull was too great between them.

Where it came from, no one could tell, but it was there...a burning beneath both their skins that would only be quenched by the touch of the other.

The passion became something stronger--something that neither had experienced before then with such intensity.

This went beyond friendship--beyond lust and need and grief and shared anguish. This became something completely new. Pure and bright and blinding in it's strength.

Then everything changed.

_John_ _came back._

Despite what they'd found in each other, they forced themselves to release it.

It became a silent agreement between them--Sheppard never need know what had gone on when he was thought to be dead...it would damage things between all of them irrevocably.

It was horrible of Rodney to feel what he did towards his friend...he knew it was horrible of him to resent his coming back from the dead...

He knew it was selfish to think about how much brighter his life had been when he had _her_ in his embrace...

How much brighter the entire world had been when she smiled at _him_...when she laughed for _him_...

Now she rarely did either for anyone...

For _that_, Rodney hated him. For taking that beautiful sound of her laughter away, he _hated_ Sheppard.

But just like what had transpired between he and Teyla, he remained silent about it.

His only comfort now--the only thing that kept him from completely losing it--were the secret smiles she would occasionally flash in his direction.

They were merely tiny shards of the shattered light between them, but he treasured them just the same.

For those few moments, he found he _couldn't_ hate Sheppard.

After all, if he hadn't been gone to begin with, Rodney never would have discovered that there existed such warmth in the universe.

For _that_, Rodney was grateful.

As they say: better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.

-

A/N: Wow...I'm being depressing again. Yay angst?

Written in response to the one hundred first sentences challenge on the When Plot Bunnies Attack Forum, number thirty five "It was such a beautiful sound"


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